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Locked and Loaded

As reported by the Salt Lake City Police Department: “The complainant had asked the victim to unload her gun for her. The complainant was seated next to the victim when he pulled the trigger instead of opening the cylinder. The round struck the victim in the left leg, just above the knee. The victim was transported to the hospital in critical condition.

(Editor’s note: parody alert) Police did not confirm whether or not alcohol, winged game or a geriatric GOP donor factored into the mishap. Reached by satellite phone in Das Bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney declined comment, saying he was drying out after a weekend quail shoot.

Unusual Suspects

02/10/06, 1656 hours, Bomb Hoax, 234 E. 1st Ave.

Salt Lake City police did their level best to investigate an anonymous bomb threat apparently called in to 911 from a pay phone at an area 7-Eleven. Dispatch reported that the verbally abusive caller claimed a bomb was set to blow up the Wilshire Arms Apartments a couple blocks away. Per a vigilant 7-Eleven clerk, dispatch told officers to keep an eye out for the suspect, an adult black male headed southbound on foot. During a police interview, however, the clerk denied describing a black male, stating that he called 911 after seeing a visibly agitated 50- to 60-year-old white guy screaming into the payphone. The clerk reportedly couldn’t make out what the man was saying.

The flummoxed officer was then called back to police headquarters, where a white male walk-in, who fit the general description of the phone screamer, had raised suspicion. That man admitted that he’d earlier dialed 911 to report someone had made off with a “book of remembrance” from his apartment, but there was nothing solid linking him to the bomb threat.

Incidentally, the man “later claimed that he may have misplaced the book or left it at his bishop’s house,” police reported. “Subject denied making any type of terroristic threat, however, [he] did claim that he had threatened to kill someone earlier in the day.

Adding to the principal mystery, dispatch reported that three more “unrelated calls had been received where a male was asking about department protocols regarding terroristic threats.” Those calls originated from a room at the nearby New Grand Hotel, but when officers followed up, nobody answered knocks at the door and another tenant advised them the occupant had moved out. And as if this circuitous caper wasn’t muddled enough, dispatch reported yet another call from an adult male'this one on a cell phone and claiming to be a journalist'inquiring about terrorist-response procedures.

(Editor’s note: parody alert) In the end, a police sweep of the Wilshire Arms Apartments turned up nothing suspicious and, to date, no explosions have been reported. Though the bomb-threat investigation continues, it would seem the case of a possibly purloined scrapbook stands a better chance of getting sorted out.

Then again, it could be that the seemingly unrelated chain of events that day was no coincidence at all. City Weekly received an unverifiable tip that a man resembling the only known person of interest was seen casually lighting up a smoke as he slipped into an idling Mercedes outside of police headquarters.

“[Keyser] Soze rarely works with the same people for very long, and they never know who they’re working for.â€